[TR] Goode- NE Buttess 7/9/2004

[obsydian]

Climb: Goode-NE Buttess

 

Date of Climb: 7/9/2004

 

Trip Report:

Climbed Mt. Goode NE Buttress July 8-10 with a team of 3. Since road from Stehekin washed out 2.5 miles before High Bridge and shuttle not running, decided to just hike in and out from Rainy Pass. Looked at the weather all week, final forecast was for chance of rain on Thursday, partly sunny Friday, improving over the weekend. Drove up Wednesday evening, stopped to eat in Sedro Wooly, saw a local paper which was calling for rain on Friday, not a good sign. Got to the Rainy Pass lot at 11pm.

 

Gear: Packed light, took small pocket rocket stove for emergencies and snow melt on the summit, but otherwise prepared for 3 or 4 days of cold food. Since we were turned back by broken up glacier and very icy conditions last year in late August, we took lots of ice gear: 2 pickets, 3 ice screws, and 1 ice tool. Ended up using the 2 pickets because we had them, but could have made it without any of the ice gear. Took large rack, full set of nuts with double on the large nuts, several hexes, 2 tri cams, 4 cams, 13 double slings with biners, glad for the large set, allowed for long running belays, could have used a couple more slings.

 

Day 1: In the morning, made a good last breakfast of pancakes and eggs in the parking lot. Got hiking down the PCT at 7:30am, stopped for long lunch at Grizzly Creek. The recent floods have made major changes to the approach and descent. Grizzly Creek is 300 yards of rock washout. Major drainage is crossed by hiking up creek 100 yards to a log crossing. The trail just before turning up-hill to Goode is eventually taken over by the washout, we found traditional route, log is still there but doesn’t reach the other side, we put a couple of small logs down and crossed. Major washout gulleys were encountered in the ensuing bushwack. Looking at the approach from the bivy site, a better attack would be to go 200 yards past the last trees where a major rock wash from Goode nearly reaches the creek, would save all that bushwacking at the bottom, but would have to find way to cross creek. Arrived at bivy site at 5,600’ about 4pm, after 15 miles of hiking. Clouds started rolling in during the evening, settling in over all the peaks, wondered if the local paper was going to be right after all.

 

Day 2: Woke up middle of night, clear sky, saw the space station make its way across the sky. 4am and all was still clear, looked great. Got up and hit the glacier at 5:30am. Glacier has receded 25 to 75 feet from last year, but is in good shape. Nice easy ramps straight up from bivy site, which is left of the buttress, hit 20 feet of ice, then easier going. Popped up about level with the buttress but far left. Traversed over to buttress, crossed a couple of crevasses. Set pickets on final approach just above first red band on the rock, was able to step right onto the rock. Not sure what would happen later in the season, may have to rappel off the glacier into the moat and climb up the rock, would be tricky. Kept a rising high traverse (looks like many parties stay low), set up first rock anchor, then one fixed pitch (had hardest move of the climb) up and over the ridge to the 4th class climbing. Did running belays the whole way to the top, did stop short a couple of times up high where the leader decided a fixed belay would be appropriate for the next move, but each time continued the running belay. Believe there were 7 pitches altogether over the 2,500’ of rock, gaining 200 to 700 feet in elevation each time. Looked East and could see clouds circling in, by 10am fog was rolling in from the summit, anxiety about the weather quickened our pace. Hit the fog at about 8,000’, luckily it wasn’t windy or wet, we just couldn’t see very far. Route is easy to follow, stayed on the left hand side 50 to 200 feet below the ridge until we popped over at about 7,800’, ridge steepened so traversed a bit right to find easier climbing, then straight up again. Passed bivy site at 8,600’, then ended right up on ridge from 8,800’ to notch just below summit block. Very poor visibility, started to sleet, wanted to get to the top and get out of there. Hit the summit at 4pm, weather improved but still poor visibility, signed register, were second party to sign this year, not many names in there. Broke out the summit pizza, then started downclimb at 5pm. Read descent directions several times trying to get our bearings, can be confusing with no visibility. There was snow within one pitch of the notch between the East and West summits blocks for melting water. Did running belay down to rappel slings at notch just below summit, in retrospect would have been faster to rappel from summit due to wet rock. Rappelled to next station (which we passed on the way up) just above the Black Tooth Notch, 60m rope just made it. Rappelled down to shelf, there are a couple of rappel slings just above the shelf, not sure why they are there, kind of confuses things. Walk off shelf to the Black Tooth Notch, downclimb 3rd class rock to rappel station, one blind single rappel will take you to final rappel station, beware of pendulum, last station is very slick. Rapped on down to steep gully, beware of rockfall, very steep downclimbing, hung left under the buttress, came out in SW Couloir, saw a good campsite at 7,600’ left of the ridge in the middle of the Couloir, set up bivy on nice flat spot with dry heather and running water. Very grateful to be off the summit in that weather, still poor visibility to 500 feet, got to bivy site at 8:30pm.

 

Day 3: Had already decided to hike out the SW Couloir route because we figured the extra 4 miles of hiking adding 1:15 time would more then make up for any technical problems we’d encounter on the Goode-Storm King Col descent. Woke up at 5am, still foggy, but started to lift and had good visibility with 8,000’ ceiling at 6am. Started descent at 6:15am, bearing straight downhill. Descent involved careful routefinding skirting cliff bands, until we were finally clear of the main cliff band. Made a gradual descending traverse to the right to gain the treed ridge, hiked down the ridge several hundred feet and ran into climbers trail, no real bushwacking. Followed trail on ridge to Park Creek Trail. Mark complained of swelled Achilles heels, he finally stopped and cut off the back of his boots, not much else to do with 18 miles still to go. Trail is washed out for several hundred yards, pick your way across the rock washout, several deep ravines, new log crossing at 2 mile camp. Hiked down to road, imagined a shuttle coming to pick us up, then back to reality and the 15 miles hike out. Picked up the PCT at Bridge Creek, ending up at Rainy Pass at 5:45pm. Figured about 20 miles for the day.

 

Great climb, would have been more enjoyable with better weather, climbing is easy, extreme exposure, very committing. We figured that with our combined ages of 141 years, we didn’t do too shabby!

 

 

Gear Notes:

Took: 2 pickets, 3 ice screws, 1 ice tool, large rack, 13 double slings.

 

Didn't need the ice gear, glad for the large rack.

 

Approach Notes:

No snow on trail, cross several washouts from recent flooding.

[ivan]

nice. plenty of walking. good tr. could use the expression "mother-fucker" a few times to spice it up though. critique over.

[Szyjakowski]

pictues????